27 research outputs found
Experimental Observation of Quantum Chaos in a Beam of Light
The manner in which unpredictable chaotic dynamics manifests itself in
quantum mechanics is a key question in the field of quantum chaos. Indeed, very
distinct quantum features can appear due to underlying classical nonlinear
dynamics. Here we observe signatures of quantum nonlinear dynamics through the
direct measurement of the time-evolved Wigner function of the quantum-kicked
harmonic oscillator, implemented in the spatial degrees of freedom of light.
Our setup is decoherence-free and we can continuously tune the semiclassical
and chaos parameters, so as to explore the transition from regular to
essentially chaotic dynamics. Owing to its robustness and versatility, our
scheme can be used to experimentally investigate a variety of nonlinear quantum
phenomena. As an example, we couple this system to a quantum bit and
experimentally investigate the decoherence produced by regular or chaotic
dynamics.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figure
Lower bound for the spatial extent of localized modes in photonic-crystal waveguides with small random imperfections
Light localization due to random imperfections in periodic media is paramount in photonics research. The group index is known to be a key parameter for localization near photonic band edges, since small group velocities reinforce light interaction with imperfections. Here, we show that the size of the smallest localized mode that is formed at the band edge of a one-dimensional periodic medium is driven instead by the effective photon mass, i.e. the flatness of the dispersion curve. Our theoretical prediction is supported by numerical simulations, which reveal that photonic-crystal waveguides can exhibit surprisingly small localized modes, much smaller than those observed in Bragg stacks thanks to their larger effective photon mass. This possibility is demonstrated experimentally with a photonic-crystal waveguide fabricated without any intentional disorder, for which near-field measurements allow us to distinctly observe a wavelength-scale localized mode despite the smallness (∼1/1000 of a wavelength) of the fabrication imperfections